News, information and analysis from the black left.

Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – Week of 5/20/13

Submitted by Nellie Bailey a... on Mon, 05/20/2013 - 19:31

Black Studies Under Assault

“We have been under siege for ten years, maybe longer,” said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, professor of African American studies at Temple University, in Philadelphia. “It’s been under attack because what African American studies represents is a fundamental paradigm challenge to the white academy.” Monteiro was part of a conference on Black studies held over the weekend at Temple, the first institution to offer a PhD in the discipline, in 1988. “We are not beholden to these other departments and disciplines,” he said. “In fact, our world view emerges from a deep critique of what they do – and that’s where the blowback comes from.”

FBI “Fishing Expedition” Against the Press

Attorney General Eric Holder’s claim that he should absent himself from the investigation of the FBI’s seizure of Associated Press phone records is “all about trying to maintain plausible deniability” of involvement, said Kevin Gosztola, a journalist with FireDogLake.com who has written extensively on government spying. It is “cowardice, frankly, said Gosztola, “to not want to face the media, who would be outraged when they found out that an establishment news media organization was the victim of an FBI fishing expedition.”

No FEAR Act anniversary

The federal No FEAR Act, signed into law 11 years ago, “came out of an incredibly hostile work environment throughout the federal government,” said Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, a whistleblower and former Environmental Protection Agency senior analyst. “Our goal was to change the culture of how government works. We didn’t quite achieve that,” she said, but “there was one moment in history when federal employees said: To hell with the jobs, to hell with the benefits, I’m going to fight for justice.”

President Obama the Best Choice Imperialism Ever Made

“One of the greatest accomplishments for imperialism, is that he has moved more of our people into the imperial camp,” said Kali Akuno, of the Malcolm X Grass Roots Movement. Akuno spoke on the Your World News documentary film, The More Effective Evil: The Impact of President Obama on the Black Community and Humanity, produced by Solomon Comissiong. “Whoever the folks are who trained him and have been his handlers, from the imperialist perspective, should be given their props, because they picked a good one.”

South Africa “Most Unequal” Society in the World

Many of South Africa’s Black political elite “have used the opportunities to accumulate at the expense of the vast majority,” said Molefi Ndlovu, a community activist and researcher at the Center for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in Durban. “That’s why we can speak of South Africa as being the most unequal society in the world, more than Brazil and other places,” said Ndlovu, speaking on the latest edition of Black Agenda Television. “It makes a lot of us a bit nervous about exactly where is the soul of the” [ruling African National Congress] party going.”

Selective Federal Gun Prosecutions in Black Indianapolis

In conjunction with a local police offensive, the U.S. Attorney in Indianapolis has vowed to fully prosecute gun crimes in five so-called “hot zones” – all of them centered in Black neighborhoods – but not in the rest of the city. Rev. Byron Vaughn, of Prisoners Reformed United, says the policy represents selective, racial law enforcement. “They made it a racial issue,” said Rev. Vaughn, a former prison inmate. People are being singled out because of “where they live.”

Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:00am ET on PRN. Length: One hour.

2 Comments

I once went to Riverside Church in New York to a mock trial of George W. war crimes.

There was a fellow there from South Africa and I wish I could recall his name, that told me a story about a fellow that was in jail with Mandela for 25 years or however long they were there. He was the lead organizer for a socialist state for Mandela. When they were released, Mandela put him in charge of Commerce. It wasn't long before he was receiving bribes left and right and falling right in with the corrupt capitalists. He made around 500 million buckeroos in no time.

Pages

This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Our email list is up and working! Here's how to get Black Agenda Report in your email inbox every week!

Black Agenda Report is published weekly, every Tuesday or Wednesday. To receive a free email notice with links to the week's new content at Black Agenda Report click here...

Tried to create a new user and login at Black Agenda Report and failed?

It's not you, it's us. We're trying to curtail what used to be thousands of spam new users created daily, and have unintentionally shut the door to all new commenters. If you're one of those who've tried to create a login and comment on our stuff in the last month or so you would have found yourself blocked. We're stilll working on that, but we have no way to know you're a real human, not a spambot,

So please send us an email at publisher@blackagendareport.com. Make the subject "new user" or "unblock me" or something like that. We'll pull emails like that a couple times daily and lift the blocks.

Why you should comment on our articles here instead of Facebook

Facebook & Twitter are like rivers. If you're not standing by the bank when something floats by, it's gone. Good luck finding that brilliant conversation you had with somebody in a FB thread 2 or 3 weeks ago. People who "follow," "like," and "friend" you on FB may rarely or never see your posts, especially if they're answering someone else's, and those lacking that tenuous relationship are even less likely to see them.

So like and follow us on FB and Twitter, but when you post your comments on our articles here, anyone who finds the article finds the comment, now or a decade from now.

That's because Facebook respects your carefully thought out comment exactly as much as an emoticon or an LOL or STFU, LMFBAO, and needs to make room for the next one. Mark Zuckerberg doesn't respect you. We do. For lots more on how that works, listen to Jodi Dean below. And if you haven't already, register, login and comment on our articles. Comments are usually open for 30 days after an article is published.